FE mechanics explained! (ask your stupid questions here)

Updated for version 0.86

Yes, I'm making this thread for myself because there are many things I simply still do not understand with this game.

So ask your stupid questions here. If you know the answer to a stupid question, post it here as well and I will edit the main post.

Please note that the answers below are from beta testers and are based on their experiences with 0.86. Mechanics can and will change during beta, and some of them we might not fully understand at this point.

Edit: The information in this post is NOT updated since the release of Beta 0.90!

A: You have to build a pioneer and find a spot that supports cities again; best way of doing that is activate the show yields button. Know that cities have to be at least 6 tiles apart from each other and that locations that allow for cities are really hard to find later in the game so expand early. The pioneer has two buttons, settle will build a new city and outpost will expand the influence area of an existing city by a 2 tiles in every direction square around the outpost. There is no limit on how far away an outpost can be from the city. [Karma to: DrAtomic1]

Q: When founding a city, does the grain/material values on the surrounding tiles matter?

A: No, it has no impact what so ever. Pick the spot with the best values. Don't worry much about nearby special terrain items (shards, gold etc) as you can capture those through outposts, instead concentrate on getting the absolute best values you can for food and materials. Keep in mind you will need a minimum of seven grain (get some through nearby outposts!) to achieve a L5 city. [Karma to: Manii Names]

Q: Is there a way to the the tile values other than hovering over the settle button on a Pioneer?

A: In the upper right hand corner is a button, press it to have the yields displayed. Note that when you load a saved game it will become unselected and you have to press it again. [Karma to: Manii Names]

Q: What are outposts good for? Can't I just build another city?

A: Cities can only be build on tiles with grain, outposts can be built anywhere. Also, you might not want to build a city everywhere. Every extra city splits your faction prestige, which allows cities to grow faster. If you build a lot of cities, they will grow very slow. [Karma to: Heavenfall]

Q: Could someone please explain growth, grain, and city leveling? How do you check/estimate when a city will grow again and/or when they're out of grain to continue growth?

A: Grain provides food to feed your people. How much food is a function of your technology, I'll give some more details in a minute. Each person in your city consumes one food to survive, so if you want to achieve a L2 city you need at least 50 food, and 900 food for a L5 city. To get a bigger city you need more food to increase your base multiplier, and then you leverage that with more technology. IMPORTANT!!! There is also a Water/Air spell called Gentle Rain, which increases the food generation of your city by 20%. It can be Extremely beneficial to have either your Sovereign or some other hero able to cast this, and I actively work for it in every single game.

Potential Food Multipliers:

Base (+25).

Civics (+20): Watermill +10 (Kingdom only), Docks +10. Note you need a river for these, so when trying for a huge Metropolis build next to a river.

Restoration (+10): Just for researching you get +10, this also unlocks the ability to build Orchards (+1 Food) and Apiaries (+1 Food / +1 Gildar).

[Karma to: Manii Names]

Q: How can I tell when my city's/cities' Zone of Control (ZoC) will expand based on the prestige I have? What sorts of things increase (or decrease) prestige? Is the only function of prestige to increase my ZoC so I can see things better and have access to building resources?

A: Prestige is not directly related to your ZoC size. Prestige helps grow your cities by adding growth to them which makes them grow faster. Then, as your cities increase in level, they will spread more ZoC up until city level 3 (after that, there are no more ZoC gains from city level). The ZoC is updated the turn AFTER the city gains a level. [Karma to: Heavenfall]

Q: Other than changing the tax rate and building a few buildings (Gallows comes to mind), are there any other ways to deal with Unrest in cities? Do number of cities impact Unrest? How is Unrest calculated?

A: Unrest is generated 100% from taxes. Lower taxes is less unrest. You can impact it through buildings (Gallows, Prison, Town Hall) and spells (Calm or Bless City).

As a general rule I run at zero taxes for as long as possible. Keep your expenses low by not building unnecessary buildings or else destroying them after they are no longer needed. I will commonly build a barracks, crank out a bunch of troops, and then scrap the barracks to save the upkeep costs.

It's like this - early on normal taxes will give you 40% unrest but only generate like 2 gildars. I'd rather have zero unrest and slowly lose money. Raise money by selling stuff, go out and kill things and sell the loot, use said loot to keep your Empire going. The Merchant trait and gold mines can both help a bunch too. Sell the dogs, escape scrolls, fire resistance pots, sand golems etc. They are all worth quite a bit of cash and are of relatively little utility overall. Keep some spare weapons and armour, but when you have a ton of it sell that crap too. [Karma to: Manii Names]

Q: Are terrain bonuses present in this version FE? There was a post where Brad alluded to their existence. If so, how can we see them?

A: No

Q: Are there specific buildings to choose for each city level e.g. prison only appears when city levels to level 3, or is there a chance to get the option prison at both city level 2 and 3?

A: Improvements are specific to the city level (based on info in CoreAbilites.xml and from experience.) [Karma to: mmilleder]

Q: Is there any benefit to having idle (ZZzz...) production in cities, other than when you build units that do something with them? For instance, does it add Gildar? Research? Growth? Prestige? etc.

A: Some of the level up city improvements provide a bonus (gildar, research) if the city is idle, otherwise there is no benefit.

[Tactic] I will commonly use these cities for Pioneer production, and use them to make sure every last scrap of my claimed area is covered by my influence via outposts. This allows me to order people to leave and have them actually be gone. It also allows me to strategically nuke the bejabbers out of any invaders. [Karma to: Manii Names]

A: The only resources which are truly local and can only be consumed locally are the grain resources. All of the others - Iron, Shards, Horses, Wargs, Crystal - go into a global pool and can be used by any city.

Q: What is the importance of iron ore? How does it impact gameplay?

A: Iron ore is used to make metal weapons and armour. For example you need one iron to equip a figure with a Boar Spear. If your unit (such as my current Spiky Armadillos) has five figures then you'll need five iron to train that unit. Metal armour also uses metal, and there are city improvements and racial traits which decrease the amount of metal used.

Q: How is the Crystal resource used to make magical weapons/armor?

A: When you are designing units you can assign them magic weapons, armour and special equipment, all of which will require one or more crystal to construct. Basically its uses are identical to iron, you just can make different and better things with it. [Karma to: Manii Names]

A: Accuracy is used on all attacks with an equipped weapon (Including wands). Accuracy increases by 2 points per level up. My best guess at how this is calculated is: Accuracy/Dodge (needs citation) as a percentage, with the maximum hit rating being 95%. [Karma to: CdrRogdan]

Q: What is intelligence good for? Does it have an affect on spell casters?A: Intelligence helps your spell ability and your spell resistence.[Karma to: Frogboy]

Q: Other than the spells that come out of the magic research tree how does my sovereign gain new spells? How do I determine which spells my sovereign starts with ?

A: Your spellbook is determined by the ranks you have in the various schools of magic. For example if you know Death Magic III you will have access to Antipathy, Berserk, Blindness, Curse, Drain Life and Wither. Other than in the Magic tree there is no researching of spells, you get what you get and that's what you get. As you level up and gain more ranks in the various spell lines you will gain access to more spells.

The only way to gain new spell lines (ie you want Fire and did not start with it at all) is through the Steal Spirit spell. You sacrifice a champion and your sovereign steals one spell rank from the now deceased champion, as long as the rank you steal is greater than what you already have. Example you have Air II, Death II and Water II. If you sacrifice somebody with Fire II you will gain ONE (1) count it ONE (1) rank in Fire magic. Say you later on sacrifice somebody who has Air II, Earth II, and Fire II. You could choose to gain one rank in Earth (Earth I) or one rank in Fire (Fire II, since you already have Fire I). [Karma to: Manii Names]

Q: Is there a way to predict the maintenance costs of units generated? Or is there a rule of thumb to apply?

A: It is 10% of the production cost. [Karma to: Manii Names]

Q: How much does normal units actually improve from levelling. Is there an formula, or do I just have to look at stats?

A: They gain greatly in HP (I don't know the formula but CON plays a big part in it). Accuracy goes up by +2 per level, Spell Resistance and Spell Mastery at +1 per level. These values are true for heroes as well.

Q: Will adding the trait Accuracy to my archers make them do more damage

A: The Accuracy trait is essentially equal to +1.5 levels worth of to-hit bonuses. Each figure in a unit has a chance to hit the target, when you attack something they will each make their own individual check to see if they were successful. More accuracy means you're more likely to hit and do damage. If you're building a serious military town try to choose the Training facility at town L2, as it will provide a free and automatic +5 accuracy upgrade for every unit built there. There are also some major city buffs which can greatly enhance the combat effectiveness of newly trained troops as well.

Q: Can the injuries a champion received after losing battle be removed?

A: Currently, they can be removed by using a potion that is sometimes available as a quest reward.

Q: Are monsters more, less or equally likely to attack your city if their lair is taken over by the ZoC?

A: Probably not. Frogboy has alluded to them being fairly intelligent when it comes to deciding to attack or not. They will never simply wander into your city and start a fight. So, monsters only attack or move against you when they think they have a chance to win. I believe that what you are seeing is that the defenders of a goodiehut are often STRONGER than the units a monster lair spawns over time. Therefore, they will act more aggressively.[Karma to: Heavenfall]

"Control+N" will start a new game with your preset choices (Sovereign, faction, difficulty etc). Note doing this a bunch of times in a row will crash FE. I suggest that once you find a starting spot you like that you save the game as "Starting" or some such, then exit out completely and relaunch FE with your saved game.

"PrintScreen" saves screenshots in <My Documents>\My Games\FallenEnchantress\ScreenShots. It is also stored temporarily in memory, so if you're making edits in Paint to post here on the forums you can just switch to Paint and paste it in for immediate use. I do this a lot BTW, quite a few of my posts have graphics in them that I made in this manner to help illustrate one point or another.

Pressing "Tab" on the strategic map will select the next unit which still have movement points remaining.

Pressing "Enter" ends your turn.

Pressing "Space" will end the turn of a unit in the tactical map.

Pressing "Space" on the strategic map will end the turn of the currently selected unit, setting it's movement to zero and removing it from the 'Tab' queue. However if said unit is currently on a long journey pressing "Space" in this manner will cause it to not move at all this turn.

"1" through "4" are shortcuts for various views. "1" is the skewed view you start the game with. "4" is zoomed out all the way with the cloth map.

"Control+S" quick-saves the game. I have had extremely bad luck with reloading these games however. Use at your own risk.

When a city is selected, "B" brings up build side bar. "T" brings up unit training side bar. "Escape" will close these side bars. You can hit "B" or "T" to switch back and forth between them. Hitting "D" will pop up the city details window (which the escape key won't close).

When an individual hero is selected, "E" brings up equip window. "T" brings up trade window if another hero is close by.

[Karma to: Manii Names]

Q: How can I identify Kingdom versus Empire units in the UI?

A: There is no good way, but by color (each faction has their own color) and once you see them, you can talk to them - actually their leader, and you likely know which side he/she is on. [Karma to: mmilleder]

Q: Combat mechanics. How do they work? Which values are compared against one another? How are rolls are generated from stats and compared against one another to get hits, misses, clinks and the like?

A: This is to the best of my knowledge.

When rolling to hit in melee, for the attacker's accuracy and the defender's dodge are compared. The game selects one number between 0 and the stat. Whoever rolls higher wins, which means it lands if it's the attacker, or "dodge" if it's the defender. A unit with multiple units roll several times, once for each member. So a unit with 7 members may hit 3 swings in one attack, and 4 would then be dodged. This is not displayed, it simply shows the damage from those 3 hits.

For ranged attacks, accuracy is rolled against "Dodge against ranged" instead. It is also possible that Dodge against ranged is added to the Dodge stat when trying to dodge ranged attacks, I do not know this.

When casting a spell that can be resisted (note: many can't), then the attacker uses Spell Mastery and the defender uses Spell Resist. The same roll is performed as when trying to hit with accuracy vs dodge.

As for how much an attack hits for, the following formulas are used:Max Damage = Attack * (Attack / (Attack + Defense)) Min Damage = Max Damage / 2A number is rolled between the minimum and the maximum damage. Therefore, the average damage is just in between minimum and maximum damage as far as I know. Again, just like accuracy and dodge, each member in a unit will roll their own damage.So a unit with 2 members that hit twice will not deal double damage, they will simply perform two attacks that deal normal damage.

There are also resistances in the game. For example, you can have 25% fire resistance. This resistance value is removed from the final damage, after all other things have been taken into consideration. It is possible to have 100% resistance, in which case the unit becomes immune to that damage.

If you are running an un-modded game, in beta 0.86, physical attacks (cutting, pierce, blunt) only have defense values from armor. Magical attacks (fire, cold, lightning, poison) only have resistances.

For crits to happen, the game looks at your accuracy vs dodge roll. If your accuracy hit was 10 or more above the dodge roll (above the "threshold"), you may crit. Then, the game checks your crit chance. That is a straight up percentage number. Ie, if you have 20 crit and your accuracy roll was 10 or more above the dodge, you have 20% chance to crit that particular attack. Also, you will notice that trained units can never crit. I believe that spells cannot crit, but ranged attacks and melee attacks can. Note that this kind of threshold mechanic means that accuracy increases your opportunity to crit, and a monster with high dodge will be doubly difficult to crit on, even if you manage to hit it. There is also a few items and traits that make it so that the unit cannot be critted.

The italic parts are things I'm not sure about.[Karma to: Heavenfall]

Q: What is the difference between blunt and cutting damage?

A: Cutting, blunt and pierce damage are completely different types of attack. A weapon usually has only one type of physical damage, and may have additional magical damage such as fire or poison. What type of physical damage is relevant when attacking enemies with different types of defense. Plate armor, for example, is particularly good at defending against blunt attacks. Chainmail is better against cutting damage, and leather it not good against anything in particular. Note that an armor item may say "+20 defense" and "+5 blunt defense". This means that the item has 25 Blunt defense in total, and 20 cutting and piercing defense. [Karma to: Heavenfall]

Q: How does the existing initiative system work and how are "rounds" a part of this process? How can this info be viewed in the UI?

A: Initiatives are used to determine how often a unit gets a turn in battle. A unit with 20 initiative would get twice as many turns as a unit with 10 initiative.[Karma to: Frogboy]

Q: How is a unit's power rating calculated? And how is this value used if you use auto-resolve instead of playing out the tactical battle?

A: The combat rating of a unit is just a rough guide we use to get an approximation of a unit's non magical power. It isn't actually used. Auto-resolve simply plays a simplified version of tactical battles off screen. [Karma to: Frogboy]

Q: What things can I do to improve my relations with other opponents other than crush them with my armies?

A: In 0.86 you can make economic, trade, non-aggression, and alliance treaties with them. These show up in the relations screen as improving your relation. Presumably there will be more options once diplomacy is developed further. [Karma to: Publius of NV]

Q: What is intelligence good for? Does it have an affect on spell casters?

A. Intelligence helps your spell ability and your spell resistence.

Q: How is a unit's power rating calculated? And how is this value used if you use auto-resolve instead of playing out the tactical battle?

A. The combat rating of a unit is just a rough guide we use to get an approximation of a unit's non magical power. It isn't actually used. Auto-resolve simply plays a simplified version of tactical battles off screen.

Q: How does the existing initiative system work and how are "rounds" a part of this process? How can this info be viewed in the UI?

A. Initiatives are used to determine how often a unit gets a turn in battle. A unit with 20 initiative would get twice as many turns as a unit with 10 initiative.

When I look at the magic tree there are rings, weapons and such that comes from crystal (I believe). I have gotten mage units, but do I have to specially design units myself to get soldiers with for exampel crystal swords? I havent tried this myself as I play Umber and usually use Ogres and Drakes late game

I have a question about spellcasting on the world map. As I understand, my enemy has to be in my territory if I want to hit him with bad spells like pillar of fire. Does my Sovereign also need to be inside my territory? I tried yesterday to cast, but I couldnt. The eney was within my territory and my sovereign was inside the domain of one of my outposts. How does this really work?

I don't see how a wait feature would work with the current system. You would then need to have some sort of end turn mechanic as well.

All wait does is defer that unit's action until all other units have moved. At that point they MUST move or skip. No end turn is needed. If multiple units wait, they move after all other units in reverse order of ther original initiative (lowest to highest). It's pretty simple and allows for a lot of additional tactics/strategy. You could do this even in MoM. The only reason I can think of that they didn't add it in is that it might be tougher to program the AI with it in there. If they want to improve tactical battles, however, this is something to look at. It's ben a pretty bog standard feature in these kinds of games.

I don't see how a wait feature would work with the current system. You would then need to have some sort of end turn mechanic as well.

All wait does is defer that unit's action until all other units have moved. At that point they MUST move or skip. No end turn is needed. If multiple units wait, they move after all other units in reverse order of ther original initiative (lowest to highest). It's pretty simple and allows for a lot of additional tactics/strategy. You could do this even in MoM. The only reason I can think of that they didn't add it in is that it might be tougher to program the AI with it in there. If they want to improve tactical battles, however, this is something to look at. It's ben a pretty bog standard feature in these kinds of games.

But in FE, when do you mean all other units have moved? One unit can move three times while another unit moves one time... There are no turns, so the question is what to wait for when you tell a unit to wait.

I'd really like to know more about how resources, outposts, and settlements interact. I know that resources from outposts go to one of your settlements, do they go to the settlement that is closest to the outpost, or to the settlement that trained the pioneer? If I settle near one of my existing outposts, do I effectively redirect resource flow?

I'd really like to know more about how resources, outposts, and settlements interact. I know that resources from outposts go to one of your settlements, do they go to the settlement that is closest to the outpost, or to the settlement that trained the pioneer? If I settle near one of my existing outposts, do I effectively redirect resource flow?

Quoting Ragmash, reply 91I'd really like to know more about how resources, outposts, and settlements interact. I know that resources from outposts go to one of your settlements, do they go to the settlement that is closest to the outpost, or to the settlement that trained the pioneer? If I settle near one of my existing outposts, do I effectively redirect resource flow?

They go to the closest settlement.

So then, if I settle relatively nearby to those outposts, does this reset? Does the new settlement absorb these because it is now "the closest"?

I cannot grasp how the production of mines and shards (when they are first created) is calculated. Sometimes its like 25 rounds to finish other times its far less.

I also do not quite get the thing about the city sometimes having to produce it (when its close to city methinks), and it "blocks" my production for a long time. It seems faster and cheaper to just use outposts?? Maybe even make an outpost, start production of the shards and then place a city close to the shard/mine/whatever.

Doest the outpost production of a shard "steal" production resources for the closest city?

Do my soldiers ever start getting crystal weapons as upgrades, or do I have to specially design my forces for that to happen. The only warlike thing I have gotten out of the magic tree is Mages and they are outperformed by Archers anyways.

I cannot grasp how the production of mines and shards (when they are first created) is calculated. Sometimes its like 25 rounds to finish other times its far less.

I also do not quite get the thing about the city sometimes having to produce it (when its close to city methinks), and it "blocks" my production for a long time. It seems faster and cheaper to just use outposts?? Maybe even make an outpost, start production of the shards and then place a city close to the shard/mine/whatever.

Doest the outpost production of a shard "steal" production resources for the closest city?

I just dont get this at all.

You could consider it "stealing" production, as it uses the production rate of the city it's tied to to determine how long it will take to build. For example, a mine tied to a level 4 city with 5 production is going to build a LOT faster than that same mine tied to a level 1 city with 2 production. I do not know the base production values of each resource.

However, if the mine you're trying to build is touching the closest city, it will instead become a PART of the city, and therefore be added to its build queue. If you don't want to wait forever for a particular mine to get built, use an outpost before building your city nearby.

Do my soldiers ever start getting crystal weapons as upgrades, or do I have to specially design my forces for that to happen. The only warlike thing I have gotten out of the magic tree is Mages and they are outperformed by Archers anyways.

The quick answer is you have to design them yourself. Our current Beta version does not have enough built-in designs, but this is something Brad and Derek have touched on when they are talking about faction differentiation so I expect to see a lot more of them in the next release. Some of the modders have also made a zillion unit designs and you can get those in the mods forum.

As far as Mages go, they do a lot less base damage than an Archer (5 v 8) but their damage is not impacted by defensive armour so against a heavily armoured target they are extremely effective. Another advantage (sometimes) is their damage is typed (Fire/Cold). This can be WONDERFUL if you're trying to kill a very defensive target that has a vulnerability. Vetrar (Wildlands Lord of Winter) is a great example - he has like 50 armour so it's tough for archers to hurt him, AND he's vulnerable to fire. Fire Mages chew him up like crazy.